Look near the end to see what "the plant" is. The damage from the "explosions" (which were pressure seals popping) is slight and from the fire, well confined. The chemicals were kept in trailers, and as of mid-afternoon today not all of them had even failed. Something like three had "exploded". I have to assume some of the trailers were in the shed that a few are taking to be the entirety of the plant. Low expectations of Texas manufacturing facilities, I guess.
They haven't said what the chemicals were (besides organic peroxides) but they've said the smoke isn't toxic, so if they're telling the truth my yesterday's guess that it was anhydrous benzoyl peroxide is off--or the containment vessels ensure fairly complete combustion of the benzoyl radical, which I find unlikely.
It's unclear what the rule, had it taken effect, would have done for this plant. (I think it's sort of an important point. The presumption is that the rule would have helped prevent or mitigate this catastrophe. If it wouldn't, then opposition to the rule becomes irrelevant, except to show attitude and thinking, not actions and consequences.) The "rule" is 112 pages long and at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-01-13/pdf/2016-31426.pdf .
The Twitter-like summary is that it requires an outside safety and procedures audit, obligatory finding of internal, management-related "root causes" of any accidents or releases; field exercises; and public statement of what's on the premises. I don't see how anything in the rule would have assisted in this case because I doubt anybody would have planned for this event. Local authorities have been told what's there.
I find much of the explanation of what the rules entail troubling, to be honest (and that's just reading the rule, I don't bother with second, third, and fourth-hand reports when the original document's so easily accessible). It's a tort lawyer's wet dream.
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